3. The Intouchables
A feel good buddy comedy that has been a phenomenon around the world, The Intouchables is a crowd pleasing French charmer aimed at the adult audience. Very loosely based on a true story, it follows the unlikely friendship between a rich tetraplegic and his streetwise caretaker of Senegalese descent. While lacking subtlety in a lot of ways, the film thrives due to the remarkable chemistry of the two leads, and by not favoring one man's experience over the other. A truly heartwarming story where both men grow and learn from the other, while having a good deal of fun in the process.
2. Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson's best movie in years, Moonrise Kingdom is an adventurous story of young love, as two 12-year olds run away together, causing an uproar in their small New England town. Anderson does his best work focusing on children, rather than the broken adults he typically litters his movies with. Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, and Edward Norton make up a typically remarkable cast, although Anderson gets the most inspired performances by the two adolescent leads, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward.
1. I Wish
The second week in a row I Wish has been the must-see flick, and if it's in your town you must make it a priority. Better yet, make it an I Wish/Moonrise Kingdom twin bill and experience the wonder and boundless imagination of youth again. Hirokazu Komeeda's loving masterpiece is the story of two brothers living with separate parents in different parts of Japan, and their unlikely plan to reunite their family once and for all.
DVD Pick of the Week: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Tilda Swinton gives another tour-de-force performance in Lynne Ramsay's uncomfortable horror. And make no mistake, We Need to Talk About Kevin is indeed a horror in almost every sense of the word, detailing the broken relationship between a mother and her aggressive, violent son. Frightening to the core, the nature vs. nurture question is explored with excrutiating detail, and the mother's role in her son's malevolence becomes hauntingly clear. Ramsay goes a little overboard in some aspects of the story, but there's no denying the power Swinton brings in front of the camera in one of her most layered roles yet.
